If your material detention conditions amounted to inhuman or degrading treatment, you may ask for the harm done to you to be remedied.
Procedure
If you believe that prison material conditions are violating your rights to the extent this violation breaches your right not to be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment, you should complain to the investigative judge according to the procedure provided by article 473² of the Criminal Procedure Code, also known as the so called ”compensatory mechanism”. Read more about the criteria for evaluation when detention conditions may be considered inhumane or degrading treatment. This complaint should be submitted by you, personally or through a lawyer, to the court in which territorial jurisdiction is located the prison where you, as a convict, are held or, as the case may be, from which you were released. If you are detained pending trial, you may submit this complaint to the judge examining the criminal charges against you.
Please be aware that there are special statute of limitations for this court action. The complaint therefore should be filed within 6 months from the date when you are no longer detained in such conditions and 4 months from your release.
The complaint under compensatory mechanism regarding the material conditions of detention that are in breach of prohibition of inhumane or degrading treatment must contain:
- data regarding the period and place of detention
- detailed description of the material conditions that seriously affect your rights as a prisoner
- the request to oblige the prison administration to remove the conditions complained
- the request to remedy the human rights violation by reducing the detention sentence or payment of a compensation if reduction is not possible
- if the case and if possible, explanations of other prisoners, copies of previous complaints, addressed to the prison administration or other authorities, and their answers
- any other relevant evidence
Simultaneously with the filing of the complaint, a copy is to be sent, with all the documents/evidence/materials attached, to the relevant complained prison.
The prison administration submits to the court in writing, within 10 days, a report in which it responds to all the claims invoked. A copy of the report and the materials attached are handed over to the prisoner.
Your complaint will be examined within 3 months by the investigative judge, with your participation, of your lawyer and the prison’s representative, or by the judge examining the criminal charges against you respectively. The burden of proof of the lack of complained violation and/or lack of non-pecuniary damage is on the prison administration.
When assessing the conditions of detention, the court will consider both the evidence presented by the parties and the reports of national and international human rights institutions, as well will apply the specific criteria. The court does not need to find the guilt of prison administration or officers.
Appeal
The court decision is immediately enforceable, but can be appealed in the relevant Court of Appeal, within 10 days from the delivery. The procedure for the appeal must be indicated in the decision.
Types of remedies
Remember that there are 4 types of remedies that you may receive under the compensatory mechanism. When the court holds on the violation of your right not to be subject to inhumane or degrading treatment in relation to conditions of detention, it can be remedied by:
- court’s order to the prison administration to redress poor detention conditions within up to 15 days
- reducing of the detention sentence with 1 to 2 days for every 10 days of detention in poor conditions
- a certain amount of money (up to 2 conventional units for each day in poor conditions) if there is not possible to fully or partially apply the sentence reduction
- release from the execution of the non-imprisoning penalty in certain situations